Network Evolution Key to Driving Cloud Expansion

Network services such as WAN optimization, encryption, and load balancing are becoming available as a virtual machine. Service virtualization and the NFV standard introduce a new world of possibilities for cloud networking, similar to today's smartphone app ecosystem. Future deployments could enable the user or application software to select services as needed – on demand or from a catalog of possibilities – all running over the virtualized network infrastructure.

Much work still remains to define the interoperability standards and programming interfaces necessary for SDN. However, enough has already been accomplished to see the potential for software to leverage the fiber and network scalability to provide elasticity and extensive on-demand utility.

During the early 1990s, visitors to a trade show clicked on a hyperlink and used the Internet to connect to over 600 servers. It was called the World Wide Web and stunned the users with the simplicity of the operation and how easy it was to get information. Of course, today we can connect to more than 690 million servers, and the Web is woven into the very fabric of our lives. It was the dawn of a new era in technology.

Which of today's technologies are now similarly positioned to revolutionize our work and interactions? Cloud computing is signaling that we are again at the dawn of a new era, and the network will drive the way we use the cloud in much the same way as the browser transformed the Internet.

Today the cloud is bound by the network. To truly realize the full potential of cloud computing, network connectivity must be as accessible and user-friendly as the Web made the Internet. In this slideshow, network specialists from Ciena take a closer look at the networking elements that are driving a new era of cloud computing.